Overview
- U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres imposed two consecutive life sentences and a lifetime of supervised release following Abdullah’s 2024 jury conviction on six terrorism-related counts.
- Prosecutors said he planned to hijack a commercial airliner and crash it into Atlanta’s 55‑story Bank of America Plaza after researching Delta routes and the tower in January 2019.
- He joined al‑Shabaab in 2015, received weapons and explosives training in Somalia, then pursued commercial pilot training in the Philippines from 2017 to 2019 financed by the group.
- Philippine authorities arrested him in July 2019 before he completed his pilot certification, and he was transferred to U.S. custody in December 2020.
- Investigators documented his research on cockpit doors, air marshals, transit visas and smuggling a knife onboard, and he later admitted to the FBI he expected to die in the attack as the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force led the case with international partners.